There is a lot to be said for companies that innovate by integrating with their own products. Windows Home Server is one of the more functional tools that Microsoft has built for people with a home network. The additional power and flexibility you get with a Windows Home Server is enough to make it something worth considering for power users at home.

Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft, Starcraft II…are you interested yet? With their consistent string of blockbuster titles and enduring hits, Blizzard is one of the biggest names in computer gaming. As one of the first social gaming platforms, Battle.net was ahead of its time, and helped turn Blizzard into the monster it is now. But with all of the time and money you put into your Battle.net account there’s nothing worse than finding out your account got hacked or your roommate sold that item you spent the last three weeks acquiring. Enter the Battle.net Authenticator for Windows Phone 7.

Smart phones perform many roles in modern life, but political tool wasn’t at the top of our list. Fourth of July week is a great time to feature a politically driven app such as Congress by Sunlight Labs.

If by some chance you are unfamiliar with Evernote, you should sell that rock you’ve been living under and visit our Evernote Cheat Sheet. Evernote is a must-have app for every smart phone platform on the market, but if you are a Windows Phone user you’ve probably been making do with OneNote and Windows Live Skydrive up to this point as Evernote has only released their Windows Phone app in the last week or so.

Power users looking to get the most out of their Windows Phones have something special to look forward to. ChevronWP7 is a utility that allows consumers to developer unlock their Windows Phone 7 devices. This provides the capability to side-load applications to the phone without going through the Marketplace, as well as providing lower level access to things like the system registry. Typically this functionality requires a $99 per year subscription to Microsoft’s App Hub.

Many of the tools, features, and fundamental building blocks in Microsoft applications were originally developed by the dark wizards at Microsoft Research. From little things we take for granted like Windows Desktop Gadgets to the high end Microsoft Surface platform, Microsoft Research has their work spread through the entire Microsoft catalog of products. Windows Phone 7 has the fingerprints of Microsoft Research strewn throughout the OS, most notably showcased by the text prediction within the superb software keyboard.

Intel's taken some shots to the ribs recently. Several tablets have gone with ARM-based chipsets rather than Intel's old standby, x86. Then, Nokia left Intel at the Medfield processor altar, running off into the sunset with Windows 7 phones instead. So what's a down-on-its-luck processor manufacturer to do?

We're all familiar with stories about Apple pulling an app from its App Store for suspect reasons. Even Google has gotten in on the fun as of late, but now its Microsoft's turn. An app called Imagewind is in imminent danger of being pulled from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. The developer was originally told the app was being pulled immediately, but has now been given a grace period of indeterminate length.

If you're wondering how Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform is doing, wonder no more. The numbers, as provided by the Redmond software giant, are in, and there's plenty to digest. For starters, Microsoft claims its Windows Phone Developer Tools have been downloaded over 1.5 million times, which is about the size of the entire population of Philadelphia, the software company points out.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for a year, Reddit.com exists, and it’s changed the internet for better and for always. The majority of apps that run Reddit in the Android marketplace feel stale and aren’t very good looking—lucky for Windows 7 phone users, the SDK has been around for quite some time, and our favorite Reddit app is just as sleek and streamlined as the mobile OS itself.